Duke laughed again, but said nothing. Tina arrived with coffee, beignets, fruit, yogurt.
“Milk and sugar, ma’am?”
“Black’s fine.”
Duke had milk and sugar, lots of both. He stirred the cup, eyes on the tennis court. After Tina left the room, he said, “Not too many good marriages in this part of the world these days. That’s what’s so tough about all this—not just knowing both of you so well, but how your marriage was kind of an example to the rest of us.”
Her marriage was not something Nell wanted to discuss with Duke—or anyone, except for Clay. She sipped her coffee, gazed at Duke over the rim of the cup.
“He’s real upset, Nell,” Duke said. “I’ve never seen him like this. Tell me what I can do.”
“What you can do, Duke? What does it have to do with you?”
Duke’s eyes shifted to her, then away. “That’s a little hurtful, you saying that.”
“I’m sorry,” Nell said. “But why?” Out on the court, the pro hit a ball that ticked the net cord and popped up over Mindy’s waiting racquet for a winner. Both women started laughing, as though it was the most hilarious sight ever. Nell wondered whether she’d be carefree like that again; maybe not quite like that, but at least carefree for her.
“For one thing,” Duke said, “I always thought you and I had a good relationship.” He smiled. “In fact, you’re the only woman—the only attractive woman—I can have a normal conversation with. Because you’re out of bounds, if you see what I mean.” He tightened the knot on the belt of his robe.
“God,” Nell said. “It must wear you down.”
“The hormone flow, or whatever it is?” Duke said. “Not yet. Is wearing down inevitable?” He picked a strawberry from the bowl, bit off the pointy tip, looked thoughtful. “Clay’s not like me that way. But you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“Tell me what?”
“That he’s a one-woman man.” Duke ate the rest of the strawberry. “Even back in high school—he dated and everything, girls all over him, football hero, but he always had someone special in mind. And that turned out to be you. Which is why this, what’s happening now, is so disturbing. I want to do something, Nell. How can I help?”
“Thanks,” Nell said. “It’s very kind. But there’s nothing you can do.”
“I’m a little surprised,” Duke said.
“Why?”
“I didn’t think you’d give up so easily.”
That annoyed her. “Who said anything about giving up? Why do you think I’m here? I want to talk to him.”
Duke showed no reaction to the change in her tone, maybe hadn’t noticed. “Point taken,” he said, reaching for another strawberry. “I’m surprised you’re not using every available resource, is what I should have said.”
“What resource are you talking about?”
“Me,” Duke said. “Clay and I are like brothers.”
“Wouldn’t that only make it harder for you?” Nell said. “Besides, you have a real brother.”
Now Duke’s face did show a reaction, creases appearing in his forehead, still peeling slightly from the Bahamian sun. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Nell actually wasn’t sure; the remark had almost made itself. “I was referring to Kirk, that’s all.”
“What about him?”
“Nothing. He’s your brother. Your real brother.” So you don’t need my husband for a brother? Is that what she was trying to tell him?
Duke gave her a long look. “The primary relationship is husband and wife—I get that,” he said; Duke was smart, almost in her head. Down on the tennis court, Tina was bringing Mindy and her pro cold drinks on a silver tray. Mindy looked up, saw Duke watching, gave him a girlish little wave, identical to Vicki’s as far as Nell remembered. “I’ve got a proposition,” Duke said, waving back. “For you and Clay both.”
“What is it?”
Duke turned to her. At that moment a cloud passed over the sun, and Duke’s face changed, suddenly careworn; she saw how he would look in thirty years. “It’s all predicated on him taking this new job,” he said. “I thought I had him all persuaded, but he says you’re against it.”
“I wasn’t really against it for me,” Nell said. “I was against it for him.”
“What does that mean?”
“The department has been his whole life. I didn’t think he was ready to quit.”
“First of all,” Duke said, “he’s already given plenty, more than anyone could ask. Second, you’re using the past tense—does that mean you’ve changed your mind since the two of you discussed it?”
Yes: he was very smart, probably smarter than Clay, or than her, for that matter. How had she not seen this side of him? She began to understand the success of DK Industries. But what to tell him? Certainly not the truth: that she suspected Clay—knew beyond almost all doubt—that he’d sent an innocent man to jail for life on a charge he knew to be false; and that she feared far far worse than that. Duke’s head was tilted to the side, maybe looking at her from a new angle in both senses; he was waiting for an answer.
“This case,” she said. “It’s just…” And all at once Nell was close to tears. She rose, went to the window, her back to him. Crying in front of Duke: not that. The pro ripped a backhand down the line for a clean winner. Mindy applauded tennis-style, clapping with one hand and the strings of her racquet, silent. Nell got a grip, turned, faced Duke dry-eyed. The sun had come out; the old-man preview faded, and Duke looked his normal self.
“You don’t have to say anything about the case,” he said. “It’s horrible. I’ve never seen him like this, so distraught. And the worst part is this rift it’s opened up between the two of you. I just don’t understand.” Duke seemed a little distraught himself, his pale blue eyes full of emotion.
“What do you suggest?” Nell said.
“That’s my cue,” said Duke. “Stay right there.” He hurried from the room.
Nell poured herself another cup of coffee, regretted it after just one sip, a sip that pushed her over some edge, piling coffee jitters on top of all her other instabilities. She walked over to the side wall, cream-colored, with several photos, all of Little Parrot Cay, on display. One, probably the most recent because of Vicki’s presence—she was in the background looking happy and drunk—showed Duke and some Bahamians admiring a marlin hanging upside down from a scale. Nell’s gaze wandered over the others, searching for Clay without success. They were almost all fishing photos, except for one in the bottom row, somewhat yellowed with age, in which a younger and much trimmer Kirk, a dive mask pushed up on his forehead, raised a plaque: Eleuthera Free Dive Champion, Kirk Bastien: 115 feet. Nell heard Duke coming and returned to the table.
“Feast your eyes on this,” he said, handing her a brochure.
It was all about a villa on Lake Como. She leafed through. Villa Serena. “Beautiful,” she said.
“I guess,” said Duke. “The crazy thing is we kind of own it. Fell into our hands, too complicated to explain—I’m not sure I understand it myself. We’re putting the place on the market, of course, but not till next year, something about euro accounts. But the point is, there’s no one in it right now, just standing empty. And, well—how does Italy sound?”
How did Italy sound? Nell hadn’t traveled much outside the United States, had never been to Italy, and there was nowhere she’d always wanted to see more. “What are you saying?”
“I was thinking you and Clay might like to go there, house-sit for a month or two, long as you like.”
“How could we do that? Clay could never get away from work for that long, and the museum’ll be reopening soon.”
“You’re forgetting about Clay’s new job,” Duke said.
“If he takes it.”
“I think that’s going to pretty much depend on you. One more thing to factor in—for some time now we’ve been wanting to make a move or two in the art game.”
“The art game?”
“To do what?”
“Manage this collection for us, buy and sell, be the brains.”
“What collection?”
“We’ve got these new consultants,” Duke said. “They’re pushing art collection on us.”
“You’re offering me a job?”
“In my clumsy way, yeah,” said Duke. “You’d have a pool of two or three mil at the outset.”
“The outset of what?”
“Buying art. But if you needed more—some Picasso pops up, that kind of thing—we’d try to be accommodating. Salary would be industry standard or better—ballpark a hundred grand or so, I’m told—and you could start when you came back from Italy.”
A dream she’d never even dared to dream, come true. It was all so sudden, like a rocket out of all their problems—hers and Clay’s—a miraculous escape. Duke was watching her, mouth in smiling form, eyes sharp. “It’s all so sudden,” Nell said.
“True of most good things, in my experience,” said Duke.
Nell had a strange thought: if Bernardine had been worse, bad enough to wipe Belle Ville completely off the map without a trace, as though it had never existed, then accepting this offer would have been possible. But Bernardine hadn’t been bad enough. The past remained, and with the past came questions, big ones, undermining her whole life.
“Thank you, Duke,” she said. “But no.”
His mouth changed shape, conformed with his eyes. “No? Just like that?”
“I’m sorry. It’s such a generous offer, but I can’t.” More than generous: perfect, as though designed with her and only her in mind.
“Mind explaining?” Duke said. “Don’t mean to be rude—just that I thought I knew you a bit.”
“It’s personal,” Nell said.
“Meaning between you and Clay?”
She nodded.
“And I respect that personal relationship,” Duke said. “I hope you know that. But—maybe just like you—there’s no one I’m closer to than Clay. I need to help.”
“There’s nothing you can do,” Nell said. “Unless…”
“Unless what?”
Nell gazed at Duke. She’d always liked him; a reprobate, maybe, to use an old-fashioned word, but he also had a lot of old-fashioned virtues, loyalty most of all. Clay was that way, too—wasn’t he? She made a quick decision.
“What do you think happened?” she said.
“Mistakes were made,” said Duke.
Nell knew that. The next word got stuck in her throat, almost didn’t get out: “Deliberately?”
“A deliberate mistake? Deliberate on the part of who?”
“I’m asking you,” Nell said.
“I don’t see why it has to be deliberate,” Duke said. “Innocent people end up in jail sometimes.”
“We’re way past that,” Nell said. “Don’t you see? The tape changes everything. There was a cover-up.”
Duke gazed at her, then looked down at his coffee, began stirring it. The room was silent, except for the clink of his spoon and the faint thud of tennis balls. Nell thought the conversation was over. Then, eyes still on the swirling coffee, Duke said, “A cover-up engineered by Bobby Rice?”
Nell hadn’t been suggesting that, but her mind responded to the theory at once, reordering facts and suspicions around it. “Is that what happened, Duke? Did Clay tell you?”
He looked up, met her gaze. “Clay and I haven’t discussed it.”
“He’s protecting Bobby’s memory? Is that what’s going on?”
“You’ll have to move on from this, Nell. I hope to God you realize that soon.”
Her mind was racing, adding, deleting, reshaping. Johnny’s murderer was white, not black, ruling Bobby out. Therefore, if Bobby was behind the manipulated ID and the cover-up of the tape, he’d been doing it for someone else. And that someone else? The murderer? Nell couldn’t come up with any other possibility. The murderer: Clay himself? Something deep inside her fought against believing that, and always would; could deep-inside things be wrong? But if not Clay, then the murderer was…close, somehow, close to Bobby or Clay or both. She began to feel the weight Clay was under; and maybe had been under all along.
“Does Clay know who the murderer was?” she said. “Has he known the whole time?”
“I told you—we haven’t discussed it,” Duke said.
Nell didn’t believe him. And more than that: “You know, too,” she said.
“Know what?” said Duke.
“Who the murderer was.”
Duke’s face turned bright red, a redness that began as spots on his cheeks and spread to the tips of his ears. “You’re not making sense,” he said.
“Tell me,” she said.
“You’ve got to stop,” he said. “So much depends on it.”
So much depended on her stopping? “Like what?” she said.
Duke paused, looked like he was arranging words in his mind. At that moment, a door opened and Mindy came in, racquet dangling over her shoulder, hair damp with sweat, skin glowing.
“Hi, baby,” she said, “when are we—oh, sorry.”
Duke made proper introductions.
Nell went to her car. Kirk was back, parking his SUV. He got out, didn’t appear to see her, walked toward his house, fast, but with a limp. He entered by a side door, pulling a cell phone from his pocket.
Nell got to Foodie and Company at 12:25. Lee Ann wasn’t there. She took a table at the indoor garden at the back, drank iced tea and waited. At 12:45 she tried Lee Ann’s cell. No answer. At one she tried again, this time leaving a message.
“Missed you at lunch. I’d be interested to hear what—just give me a call.”
CHAPTER 28
Nell left Foodie and Company and drove home. As she entered the Heights she thought she heard her phone ringing. Lee Ann? She dug the phone out of her purse, swerved over the centerline, heard angry honking. But the phone wasn’t ringing, and a quick scroll-through showed she hadn’t missed a call: now she was hearing things.
Nell turned on to Sandhill Way. No Miata in the driveway, but a sedan with a Vandy bumper sticker sat in front of the house. Nell steered around it—four girls inside, none of them Norah—and parked in the driveway. One of the girls—tiny, dark, lovely—got out of the sedan and approached her.
“Mrs. Jarreau?” she said.
“Ines?” said Nell.
“Yes,” said the girl, a little surprised. “We were just passing through, on break. Is Norah around?”
“Not at the moment,” Nell said, “but I might be able to…”
She tried Joe Don’s number on her cell phone. It rang three times and then she was in voice mail. “Norah? Ines has just stopped by.
Um.” She clicked off. Ines was watching her; Ines’s eyes were huge and expressive. “Why don’t you come inside?” Nell said. “All of you.
A snack, maybe? Iced tea?”
“Thanks, Mrs. Jarreau, but—”
“Nell. Please.”
“It’s really nice of you but we’re trying to get to Miami tonight.”
“Tonight?” Nell glanced at the car. One girl was gazing at the house; one was twirling her hair; one had her eyes closed.
“Let’s say while it’s still dark,” Ines said. “I just wanted to know how Norah’s doing.”
“You haven’t talked to her yet?”
“She’s not…she doesn’t seem to be calling me back.”
“And you’re worried about her.”
“Well. I wouldn’t say worried, exactly.” Ines shot a quick look at the car, probably trying to think of a nice way to say good-bye, get back to the road trip, and fun.
“I am,” Nell said. “I’m worried. And I believe you are, too, and not only that, but you have information that might help.”
Ines shook her head.
“I don’t know what went wrong at school,” Nell said. “But now there’s a problem here at home an
d I’m afraid it’s all going to be…” She choked up, hated herself for doing that, pressed on. “…too much for her.”
“A problem here?” Ines said.
Going into the problem at home with this girl she didn’t know went against Nell’s nature, but was there a choice? “I have no idea what you know about Norah’s real father,” she said. “That he was killed and how the wrong—how it looks like the wrong man went to jail.”
Ines was silent for a moment. Her big, dark eyes got bigger and darker. “Oh, God,” she said. “It’s my fault.”
“What is?”
“Norah,” Ines said. “How she got so…” She searched for a word, couldn’t find it.
“I don’t understand,” Nell said.
Ines’s eyes shifted to the car again. All the girls were watching now. Ines took a deep breath. “I’m a geology major,” she said. “I found—no, I should go back before that.” She took another deep breath. “Last year. Late one night, just talking, you know? And Norah happened to mention about her real father. Getting killed and all, like you say. She wasn’t upset or anything. I think we’d been talking about divorce—my parents are divorced, that’s how it started. Plus she told me about him being a geologist—because of my major?”
“I understand.”
“So then this fall—last semester—I was doing research on the New Madrid Fault Line and I found this paper he’d written about it. Dr. Blanton, I mean. It wasn’t online—an actual paper, in the library. Anyway, I showed it to Norah, kind of explained it to her. After that, she started getting pretty intense about it.”
“About geology?”
“More about tracking down her dad’s papers,” Ines said. “I found maybe three of four, all technical and dry, no personality in them. They’re scientific papers. But in one of them he thanks his father—for helping him with his first rock collection, I think it was. And that’s when she got the idea.”
“What idea?”
“To look him up, maybe get to know him a little.”
“You’re talking about looking up my—Johnny’s father?”
“Uh-huh. Norah’s grandfather. She drove down to New Orleans, spent a day or so.” Ines bit her lip. “When she came back she just wasn’t the same.”
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